Some people don't realize that a straight 'No' can be the kindest answer in the world.

I like the rain before it falls. of course there is no such thing, she said. That's why it's my favorite. Something can still make you happy, can't it, even if it isn't real.

I'm one of those unlucky people who had a happy childhood.

The writer I feel the most affinity with - you said you felt my books are 19th century novels, I think they're 18th century novels - is Fielding, Henry Fielding, he's the guy who does it for me.

Objectivity is just male subjectivity.

You would go mad if you began to speculate about the impact your novel might have while you were still writing it.

Writers never feel comfortable having labels attached to them, however accurate they are.

Contemporary Britain seems an endlessly fascinating place to me - but if I knew a little bit more about other places, and other times, maybe it wouldn't.

Ah, well, I have no talent for nonfiction, that's my problem.

For many weeks after [my wife] died, I could not get used to the feeling of coldness and lifelessness on her side of the bed - and it was even worse when they took the body away and buried her.

The more melancholy side of my literary personality is much in tune with BS Johnson's.

Come on, let your silly egotistical self be gone! And then only THAT WHICH IS will be shown.

All Pieces of puzzle set on right place, but it'll take time & dedication !!

We are like ignorant shepherds living on a site where great civilizations once flourished.

Nothing is thoroughly approved but mediocrity. The majority has established this, and it fixes its fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way.

Reserve is strength; overstatement is weakness. No one cares to hear the singer's topmost notes when the voice is 'nigh onto breaking.

Now we are expected to be as wise as men who have had generations of all the help there is, and we scarcely anything.

Money demoralizes even the giver.

Love, love, love, says Percy. And hurry as fast as you can along the shining beach, or the rubble, or the dust. Then, go to sleep. Give up your body heat, your beating heart. Then, trust.

As the arrow that leaves the bow cannot be recaptured, what we say, senselessly, about others causes us great harm.

I was exercising so hard that I began to lose weight.